Sentencing Guidelines – Supervised Release

Listen to this article

7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: United States of America v. Devin Dawson

Case No.: 20-1233

Officials: HAMILTON, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Sentencing Guidelines – Supervised Release

Devin Dawson violated the conditions of his supervised release after his release from prison. One of Dawson’s violations was possessing a loaded, semiautomatic firearm. That violation separately resulted in state criminal charges. The state charges were still pending when the federal district court in this case revoked Dawson’s supervised release and imposed a new 24-month prison term. On appeal, Dawson says the district court chose its 24-month sentence—the statutory maximum—to punish him for possessing the firearm, when it should have focused on his breach of the court’s trust and left any punishment to the state-court system. He also submits that the court disregarded his mitigation arguments and the relevant sentencing factors, and that the sentence was plainly unreasonable. We see no error and affirm.

Affirmed

Full Text

Derek A Hawkins is Associate Corporate Counsel, IP at Amazon.